FAmSCo 2012 F18 elections

This is a special transitional election for FAmSCo. All seven seats are open for election. The four candidates receiving the most votes will be seated for two release cycles and the three candidates receiving the fewest votes will be seated for one release cycle. As those terms expire in the future elections will be held each release to fill the open seats.

Candidates must be a member of the Ambassadors group in the Fedora Accounts System. This helps ensure that FAmSCo members have some experience with the processes of Fedora Ambassadors, but still allows relatively new contributors to sit on FAmSCo and bring fresh ideas to the table.

Questionnaire

Please do not answer them on the wiki. Please email your answers to Ankur Sinha "FranciscoD" at ankursinha AT fedoraproject.org by May 22 2012. All the candidates' answers will be collected and put up together before the town halls.

Name (IRC nickname)

Please briefly describe your history with Fedora.

Why do you want to be a member of FAmSCo?

What is the proper role for FAmSCo in a global project like Ambassadors?

Although my history with Fedora started just at the beginning of 2011 I've been involved in Linux communities much longer (since ~2004). Because I work as a community manager for Red Hat Czech I spend on Fedora-related stuff most of my time.

I'm an ambassador for the Czech Republic, and also in the marketing and the Czech L10n team (haven't been very active in this team though).

I produce Fedora media for EMEA.

Why do you want to be a member of FAmSCo?

I want to influence how Fedora is promoted and I think what FAmSCo needs the most now are active members and I hope I will be able to provide that level of activity.

What is the proper role for FAmSCo in a global project like Ambassadors?

As the name says it's a steering committee, so I think FAmSCo should steer the whole project, make the global decisions. It should also enable cooperation between the regional ambassadors teams and between ambassadors and other groups in Fedora.

What are your particular goals related to FAmSCo?

Improving communication between ambassadors and other groups so that ambassadors can know what activities are important for the Project and should be promoted in the community because it's ambassadors who should deliver this message. For example Test Days are a unique and great way for the community to easily contribute to Fedora. However, they are still not very well attended, and I think the awareness and promotion in the community is not very good.

Improving swag production and distribution. We've done some improvement in the EMEA region and I think we can improve it even more, perhaps on the global level.

Working as a middleman between Red Hat and Fedora. Because I both work for Red Hat and am involved in promoting Fedora (ambassadors, marketing) I'd like to help coordinate efforts between Red Hat and the community.

What would you change about the way Ambassadors is run?

I'd focus on ambassadors' activity. There are hundreds of ambassadors, but I meet just a little subset of them at regional meetings (talking about EMEA). Maybe we should start a discussion what steps to take to keep ambassadors active.

I drafted the new FAmSCo election rules that make these elections happen. I hope we get a stronger and and more active committee and of course I want to be part of it.

I want to fix the budget workflow to make reimbursements easier and quicker. We have started working on this in FAmSCo's trac

I want to improve controlling. The latest changes in the Community Architecture team have led to a situation where FAmSCo hardly has a clue about it's budget. We need better controlling for our spending and this is why Robyn and I are are working on a new draft budget

What is the proper role for FAmSCo in a global project like Ambassadors?

Make sure all ambassadors get what they need to promote Fedora

Establish policies and procedures to get things done easily

Delegate as much power as possible to the regional and local communities

Be the voice of the ambassadors and a point of contact for other groups in the project.

What are your particular goals related to FAmSCo?

Emerge new leaders. We have lost a lot of long-term contributors due to various reasons (dayjobs, private reasons) and we need new ones to fill this gap. We have lots of new ambassadors but only a few of them stand up and take over responsibility. We need to educate people how to become leaders.

Get the events calendar finally in place. If Fedora Insight is not ready soon, we should just use a media wiki calendar plugin.

Build a swag inventory that collects all kinds of swag, vendors, quotes and the persons who are in charge of each item.

What would you change about the way Ambassadors is run?

More regular meetings, especially of FAmSCo itself

Get more ambassadors involved in other groups, too. An ambassador represents Fedora and as a member of other projects you get a deeper insight into Fedora as a whole.

Run more FADs again, where "Fedora Activity Day" and not Fedora presentations. In the past, the leaders of the EMEA community met for an ambassadors FAD once a year and discussed the events of next year. This did not happen and caused a log of chaos, that will last throughout 2012. We should not only bring the EMEA ambassadors FAD but establish one a year in every region.

I started with the Fedora Project in 2007. Shortly thereafter, I attended FUDCon Raleigh in February 2008, where I was introduced to Max Spevack, Paul Frields, Michael DeHaan, Stephen Smoogen and many others. Their excitement about Fedora and its future really got me interested in the project.

I am currently a Fedora Ambassador mentor and have been since its inception. Most of my mentoring these days is with other mentors, as I believe it is good to step aside after a while and let others find a good way forward.

Previously, I managed the media production for the North American region, saving a dramatic amount of costs and improving the process to get the media out to contributors quickly with the famnarequests Trac instance.

I have been on the fudcon planning committee for the past two years. My goal is to help get the t-shirts designed and help with some additional sessions as well.

Why do you want to be a member of FAmSCo?

As I see it, FAmSCo is about making sure that ambassadors can get things done. My plan with FAmSCo is to help break down some barriers to doing just that and I see that there are some really good opportunities we are currently not taking advantage. I'd also like to help the Ambassadors broaden horizons and integrate more with the other teams and other communities where applicable, growing both the concept of what it means to be a Free Software Ambassador as well as a Fedora Ambassador

What is the proper role for FAmSCo in a global project like Ambassadors?

FAmSCo's job in my view is to serve the greater community. I'm one to believe that the Ambassadors in their regions generally know what is going on better than FAmSCo ever will. I'd like to help provide general guidelines while enabling Ambassadors and the greater community better ways to spread knowledge and information about Fedora and Free Software.

What are your particular goals related to FAmSCo?

As a candidate it is easier for you if I mention my vision clearly, that shows mainly How I see and What I ll do as a member of the FAmSCo if I am elected.

Lowering barriers to becoming an Ambassador. I do think that the Join process is good, and I had a large hand in it, but I'd like to make the process easier to complete for both the Mentors and the Candidates.

Getting out of the way of good things. FAmSCo should provide a good set of guidelines and let the Ambassadors get things done!

Provide resources for all regions quickly, and as transparent as possible. FAmSCo is about helping the Ambassadors do their job. Each region has its specific challenges and FAmSCo should be meeting regularly to address these issues. Additionally, the meetings should be as transparent as possible, meaning meeting notes, public IRC meetings with Q&A and possibly even a regular 'office hours' for Ambassadors to come and get resolution.

What would you change about the way Ambassadors is run?

I believe Ambassadors are doing much more than they used to in the past, which is amazing. I do think there are many more ways FAmSCo can improve and grow the Ambassadors program.

Lowering the barriers to joining the Ambassadors group. Improving the join process, helping mentors understand "what's next" and how to get a prospective Ambassador going quickly.

Better response times for requests from Ambassadors and community members. It's hard to judge this and say that there is any problem really, it just seems there could be some process improvement to getting Ambassadors resources they need to put the best food forward.

I began to contribute with fedora in 2008 as ambassador, in 2009 I started to contribute in the administration of LATAM infrastructure helping communities to have the means to spread Fedora more effectively in their regions.

Mentor for ambassadors.

I have attended several events in Latin America spreading Fedora. I also have attended the last three FUDCon in Latin America.

As mentor of ambassadors I have helping new ambassadors to contribute more actively in the project and contribute in other projects.

I'm a member of the RPMDev project that help new contributors to became packagers.

Why do you want to be a member of FAmSCo?

I want to collaborate more effectively to improve the level of cooperation of ambassadors understanding how things are done around the communities and propose process improvements.

What is the proper role for FAmSCo in a global project like Ambassadors?

Ensure that the contributors are able to do their job.

Analysing the needs of communities and make to get things without pain in a clear and practical way.

What are your particular goals related to FAmSCo?

Clarify how ambassadors may have access to available resources.

Encourage new ambassadors to become more active contributors.

Help the community's growth in LATAM and reach areas where there are no representatives of Fedora.

What is the proper role for FAmSCo in a global project like Ambassadors?

Coordinate ambassadors in regions and countries

Support ambassadors to run their own events and other activities

Coordinate with Fedora leadership and CommArch for budget and reimbursement

What are your particular goals related to FAmSCo?

Connect ambassadors among countries and regions better; support local ambassadors to make regional meetings more effective (e.g. more people involved, more effective discussions, faster from thoughts to actions, etc.)

Make budget budget/fund review, approval, usage and reimbursement faster and more effective

Make sure at least one FAmSCo member got free ice cream at FUDCon (of course! :)

My FAS account was created 2007-04-05, I've been involved with quite a few different projects in Fedora, including Ambassadors, Infrastructure, Docs, IRC support, etc.

Why do you want to be a member of FAmSCo?

I think I would bring experience with various aspects of Fedora to FAmSCo since I am not just involved with Ambassadors but am also involved with many other areas. I think this is important for FAmSCo to know how other teams work so they can better help them.

What is the proper role for FAmSCo in a global project like Ambassadors?

To ensure that resources are available to help make Fedora the leading Linux distribution. I believe FAmSCo should empower the regions to do their job without micro-managing everything.

What are your particular goals related to FAmSCo?

I think i've pretty much covered this in the other questions.

What would you change about the way Ambassadors is run?

Less bureaucracy with FAmSco, reduce the number of trivial tickets that have to be approved by FAmSCo (continuing the work started by the current FAmSCo).

FAmSCo is playing a major role with in the Ambassador Group, indeed they set the path to proceed.

First, the main aim is to support the Ambassador Group.

I need to provide a dedicated, effective support which Ambassadors need.

I would like to be a part of the team and be an active part of decision making process which lead shaping the project.

Further I want to make the FAmSCo, a place which is more attentive, sensitive, responsive and assisted to ambassadors and their needs.

What is the proper role for FAmSCo in a global project like Ambassadors?

The main role of the FAmSCo is to provide the support that Ambassadors seek. The support should be fast and it should be effective. Such a support keeps the global ambassador effect active and useful. Therefore FAmSCo as the hub, should provide assistant and resources and ensure the ambassadors are getting what they need, when they need. Being align with the team is another very important role that FAmSCo should play. FAmSCo should be very sensitive with the ambassadors. Should identify their needs, ideas, thoughts and try to facilitate, encourage and even try to get novel ideas to shape the team and as well as the project. FAmSCo govern the ambassador team and as well as act as the central hub which connects other entities as well.

What are your particular goals related to FAmSCo?

As a candidate it is easier for you if I mention my vision clearly, that shows mainly How I see and What I ll do as a member of the FAmSCo if I am elected.

FAmSCo should be responsive/ sensitive to needs and issues with in FAms.

FAmSCo should be attentive.

FAmSCo should be motivational.

Develop the regions country wise.

What would you change about the way Ambassadors is run?

Overall the ambassador group is running well. There are few things we need to make up.

More interaction is needed with in the group, so that we can encourage the ambassadors to participate to meetings and the FAmSCo can help them to make the meeting successful being actively engaging with those.

It is required to develop and make strong the fedora communities countrywide, it is possible to use FADs (more FADs) for that and later when we have strong communities so we can have FUDCons in various countries with in regions covering most of the parts.